How to Write an Essay :: Free Essay Writer

How to Write an Essay An essay can have many purposes, but the basic structure is the same no matter what. When writing an essay to it may be to argue for a particular point of view or to explain the steps necessary to complete a task. Some of the steps necessary to take in order to accomplish a better essay are by supporting the thesis. For example, that would be brainstorming and organizing information has to be used in order to begin. Secondly support the thesis in the body paragraphs. Lastly when finished revise and edit by adding material. Either way, essays will have the same basic format. If following a few simple steps, an essay almost writes itself. Supplying ideas for the essay are the important part of the essay anyway. When preparing to write an essay brainstorming for ideas that support your thesis statement is one of the few simple steps to follow in order to start the essay. Whether brainstorming on a piece of paper or a few pieces of papers narrow all brainstorming down by restating what is written down or just restate what you have written down to make it sound better. Organize the ideas into an outline, keeping in mind the method or methods of paragraph development (details, examples, reasons, cause and effect, comparison/contrast). Using an outline, begin a rough draft. Make sure that every sentence is directly related to the assigned topic (as stated in your thesis statement). Again, do not stray off the topic! When writing an essay support for the thesis will appear in the body of the essay, which is the "illustrating" part of the paper. In the body, it is very important to show facts about what is going on in the essay and what point wants to be crossed. To do this examples are going to be needed. Being as specific as possible is one of the main things. Give several carefully chosen examples; provide very detailed accounts of them. If the examples are well described, it will be clear to the reader that the writer has excellent reason. When finished with the rough copy, revise and edit it by adding, deleting, rearranging, and substituting material (use a dictionary and a thesaurus). First read the essay over slowly to yourself (or even aloud) and catch any mistakes seen. As well, correct errors in spelling (use the spell-checking feature in word processing program), capitalization, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency, pronoun agreement, sentence errors, and usage.

Ford Pinto Case

Running head: Ford Pinto Case Study – Was Ford to Blame in the Pinto Case? Taking a Side Mayo Smith, George Deese, Josh Eubank, Mignon Waller, Michelle Stower and Jaime Arnold University of Phoenix Take a Side Bad business decisions can be seen throughout history; however none has stirred such controversy as the error made by Ford Motor Credit concerning the 1971 Ford Pinto. Despite many safety concerns Ford CEO, Lee Iacocca and Ford executives began the production and distribution of the 1971 Ford Pinto. During routine safety tests of production models, it was discovered that every Ford Pinto tested and sustained a ruptured fuel tank during a slow to moderate speed rear end collision. The resulting fireball could cause severe burn injuries and even death to its occupants. Ford engineers designed a solution. By installing a baffle between the gas tank and the rear bumper, the threat of it possibly rupturing was nearly obsolete. These modifications would only have cost $11 per vehicle to complete. After conducting a cost/benefit analysis, Ford estimated that the cost of lawsuits and the amount Ford would have had to pay (estimated at more than $50 million), far exceeded the amount saved ($20. 9 million), by not installing the baffle (De George, R. , 2006). How can a major corporation put a price on human life? Had I been involved in the dilemma concerning the Ford Pinto, I would have somehow convinced Lee Iacocca and the executives at Ford to install the baffle. I would have gone to the press and the U. S. overnment with my concerns over the safety of this vehicle. Iacocca wanted a car that would cost under $2000. Instead of raising the price of the Pinto, the profit margin for Ford could have been decreased. The stakeholders certainly would have agreed considering the safety concerns. It was only going to cost $11 per car which would have been a total of $20. 9 million; a small price to pay considering how many Pintos sold between 1971 and 1978. Installing the baffle would ha ve thrown off the production date, but the defect would no longer be a problem. The defect should have been corrected after the first year of production, however, since it was not the entire dilemma was a terrible business decision (De George, R. , 2006). Corporations more so than individuals, have a moral obligation to keep the public safe from harm. When it comes to making and selling a product, in the case of human safety, money should not be an underline factor in doing what is considered morally the right thing to do. Ford acted unethically when they introduced an unsafe vehicle that eventually caused serious injuries. The Ford Corporation crossed the line when knowingly decided not to make the necessary repairs in the Pinto which would ultimately save lives. Corporations have an ethical obligation to assume responsibility and admit their wrong doing. Did Ford have an internal office where an employee could go and report such wrong doing without suffering retaliatory actions? Whistle blowing was something new in both the corporate and public worlds. How many people knew what was wrong with the Ford Pinto and refuse or were afraid to come forward with their concerns? The obligation not to harm any person primary falls on the responsibility of those who manage the corporation. If other people know about this, they could have had a hand in stopping this. However, other members of the corporation are not morally responsible for the actions of the corporation such as assembly workers, engineers, or office workers. According to University of Phoenix (2009), â€Å"whistle blowing is reporting improper activities to an appropriate person. † If consumers and owners of the Ford Pinto known in advance that the Pinto would explode in low impact crashes and that death was a high factor, the sales would have probably been lower to none which in turn would have been even costly to the Ford Corporation. CEO Lee Laccoca should have thought about the long-term effects of taking consumer trust for granted and avoided the negative repercussions of the Pinto if a recall was issued and handle properly. Ford could have avoided the negative publicity. Meeting obligations is very important in a social environment. Ford was operating on how internal social capital was more important than external capital. Most likely before the Pinto fires Ford had a good reputation as being one of the safest automobile in the car industry. Greed was the motivation behind Ford’s immoral ethical business decisions which resulted in the lost of many human lives. The competition of small cars was emerging and American consumers were very interested in this market. Ford decided to act quickly before they would begin to lose market their share in the marketplace. Ford’s decision had nothing to do with the concerns of the consumers but with the money it was making and their status in society. In 1971, the year the Ford Pinto was released to the public, the organization knew about the potential safety issues the car faced when a rear-end collision occurred. According to DeGeorge (2005), Ford prepared a cost-benefit analysis to determine if it would be cheaper to fix the problem, an exploding gas tank, or wait to pay out possible lawsuits that could occur after the accidents happened. Ford ultimately decided it was better financially to produce a car that was dangerous to the owner. It appears another current automotive company may have followed some of the same practices as Ford did in the 1970s. It was recently made public that there was a safety problem in some of the models Toyota produces. The problem with the Toyota’s cars is a gas pedal that causes sudden acceleration. Although it is still unclear when Toyota discovered the problem with the gas pedal sticking, and how they determined what the next steps would be, Toyota did appear to know about the problem and did not initially do anything to resolve it. In an article written by Rooney (2010) â€Å"Toyota has been criticized for not responding quickly enough to customer complaints about sudden acceleration, which have been blamed for several accidents resulting in injuries or death† (Toyota Recall: What took so long? paragraph 10). It does not matter what decade, or year, this type of scenario happens, organizations have a moral responsibility to inform the customer about any potential danger he or she faces when purchasing a car from the respective company, especially when the flaw is potentially fatal. In both cases, Ford and Toyota should have made it public as soon as they knew about the problem. If these organizations would have made the safety issues known immediately to the consumers, the consumers would have been able to make a well informed decision about the car they were thinking about purchasing; they may have even decided to purchase a different car that was safer. Rational thinkers will not put their lives, or the life of their families, in danger. As a country, America has a government that has implemented consumer safety laws in an attempt to protect the consumers from these types of situations. Reference Tech Republic (2010). Interactive Inc. ‘Steer clear of these 10 illegal job interview questions’ Retrieved March 21, 2010, from http://www. techrepublic. com Linda Klebe Trevino, Katherine A. Nelson (2007). Axia College, Decide What’s Right: A Prescriptive Approach. Retrieved on March 20, 2010 https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/content/eBookLibrary2/content/eReader. aspx De George, R. (2006). Whistle Blowing. Retrieved March 31, 2010 from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/content/eBookLibrary2/content/eReader. aspx.

Project management as organisational strategy - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2208 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? Todays world is one in which globalization has embraced almost all areas of activity. There are no industry that is not affected and strategy that does not include this important component. The role of this paper is to discuss the allegation that Projectification of the organisational world has resulted in apparent agreement that projects and project management are an efficient means of implementing organisational strategy.(Haniff Fernie 2009). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Project management as organisational strategy" essay for you Create order I will analyze this statement in terms of professional experience and by the literature exploring the content, limitations and opportunities that arise in organizational practice. In todays world project management has become a tool used in almost all organizations, whether its construction, media or fashion. But how can it be integrated into the business strategy of the organization is a question that will offer many answers. Strategic Project Management (SPM) has been defined by Callahan Brooks (2004) as the use of the appropriate project management knowledge, skills, tools and techniques in the context of the companies goals and objectives so that the project deliverables will contribute to company value in a way that can be measured (Callahan Brooks, 2004, p. 23). They further describe SPM as a process that takes into account a companys way of doing business, allowing for the possibility of a significant payoff with fewer risks (Callahan Brooks, p. 30). The above definit ions are good, but they do not convey the most important aspect of SPM, which is the fact that senior leadership needs to be involved in selecting, defining and prioritizing which projects are undertaken within the organization. Consequently, the concept of project management has become so widespread that commentators have began to speak of the projectification of society (Lundin and Soderholm, 1998, Midler, 1995). Most mainstream management text tend to refer to definitions provided by PMI (2004), who define a project as a temporary endeavour, undertaken to create a unique product or result. Within this classic description the role of the project is that of a production function, wherenprojects are characterised as a set of planning and control techniques aimed at delivering project objectives time, cost quality and scope.HANIFF Defining organizational strategy plays an important role since it defines the rules under which it will develop in the future as well as how it envi sages achieving these objectives. Judging from this statement but we question the role of project manager and project management in establishing such rules. Researchers appear to agree that projects are an efficient means of implementing strategy (Cicmil and Hodgson, 2006, Gareis, 1991, Cleland and Ireland, 2006, Roberts and Gardiner, 1998, Turner and Keegan, 1999). By employing a project management approach to delivering the broad organisational strategies, businesses are able to partially eradicate the traditional bureaucratic, mechanistic structures HANIFF. Another perspective in literature assumes that the project management approach enables organisational strategy to be implemented efficiently and effectively, thus shorting the time from strategy formulation to strategy implementation (Hauc and Kovac, 2000, Gareis, 1989, Partington, 1996). If we are to relate to the claim that project management is done through your organizations, then the latter would leave the foundatio n from which we achieve the objectives. But there are many issues involved here that does not find a solution yet. One of the most important is the project managers ability to influence the strategy for the achievement of project objectives. One could say that the barriers placed in the way of project manager are just getting started. Central to this perspective is the concept of strategic alignment.HANIFF This concept ensures that projects accurately reflect the organisations longterm investment and aspirations articulated in their organisational strategies. HANIFF However, viewing the project in terms of tools,techniques and outputs makes basic assumptions about the nature of projects and arguably diminishes the complex role of the project manager (Lundin and Soderholm, 1995). Its naive to say that the project managers role is simply to manage the project that has in coordination. Viewed more broadly, its role can be transformed into an initiator or coauthor of strategy w hich is in continuous transformation. Project`s strategy cannot operate independently of the organizations strategy. Strategic functions of the two elements work simultaneously and tend to complete. The level at which project objectives reach organisation`s strategy depends very much on the nature of the project. Projects are typically viewed as a vehicle for change within an organisation where project objectives are determined by a single parent organisation.HANIFF In considering the complexities of project management, it is perhaps more appropriate to view a project as an organisation rather than a tool.HANIFF Considering this dealing with the conflict of interest between the various stakeholders become very important; realising the role of the project manager and the implementation of information, communication and monitoring systems (Turner and Muller, 2003). The exploration of attempts to strategically align the formulation of organisational strategies with the impl ementation through projects and project management is significantly problematic.HANIFF The shortcomings described above have led to a strict focus on the execution of projects, which has created tactical tunnel vision within organizations. This tunnel vision has led many organizations to implement formal project management processes to create a tactical mindset at a time when the strategic use of resources is vital to these organizations. This tactical thinking is exactly what is needed for ensuring that things get done within a project, but strategic thinking is also needed to ensure the optimal use of time, resources and money to ensure that each project undertaken is aligned with the business strategy of the organization. Brown 2007 The objective of project and strategic management integration is to essentially increase the efficiency of the processes of strategy formulation to strategy implementation.HANIFF Diverse interests of shareholders and the difficulties of in ternal bureaucracy contributes to a very limited ability to influence. Of course, I cannot speak of a generalization to all organizations. Nevertheless, how can a project manager to influence the organizations strategy? Depending on the nature and organizational dynamics of each organization in part we can speak at most about a limited impact on the strategic process. Analysing for example the work of Philip Morris, a company in which I worked, I can say that the strategic process is rarely reported to the multitude of existing projects at a time. Of course, the project manager involvement could be much higher, especially in strategic alignment with organizational goals but this was not considered a priority. It was later found that the dynamics of change within the organization is most effective if implemented based on specific projects. The strategic objectives through the effective implementation of projects? I would say that from my professional experience and analyzing the l iterature it could beListen Read phonetically It is naive to assume that any predetermined project plans can be simplistically implemented HANIFF. It must fulfill several conditions, but especially at the higher level of organization. Conversely, project management ensures high level of efficiency in implementation of set objectives in general (Hauc and Kovac, 2000). However, Anderson and Merna (2003) postulate that the cause of project failure often originates in poor management at the front-end during strategy formulation, rather than downstream execution. Maylor (2001) goes further to suggest that more than 80 per cent of all problems at the project level are caused by failures at the board level in firms to provide clear policies and priorities. This is regardless of Archibalds (1988) assertion that if senior managers want to manage their organizations strategically, they must provide effective project management practices linked with strategic management practices. Uncertainties arise from the moment of confrontation between project and strategy. The project aims to develop as a separate entity with specific rules and methods of implementation. It also develops a certain strategy of the project in detail that not always coincides with the organizations strategy. In this point, the ability of a good relationship between project manager and senior management is vital. Coordination capacity is not necessarily only within a small universe of project but especially in the larger organization where this important issue gets such an overwhelming importance. The fact that SPM is often overlooked can be seen in research performed by Stanleigh (2006) and report in the article titled From Crisis to Control: New Standards for Project Management. Stanleigh reports that a fraction of projects undertaken by organizations (roughly 2.5 percent) are 100% successful (Stanleigh, 2006, p. 1). Stanleigh discusses the need for organizations to ensure that only th ose projects that are aligned with the corporate strategic vision be undertaken. Stanleighs strategies described above seem to be common sense, but most organizations have not taken the time to take the high-level view of their projects to ensure that the resources that are being consumed (i.e., time, money, people, etc) are creating value and/or returns to the organizationBROWN. Irrespective of the call from numerous scholars for a deeper understanding into the nature of enquiry, current literature on aligning projects with organisational strategy is not yet comprehensive.HANIFF A number of scholars focus on the upstream activities of selecting projects for the project portfolio as the critical part of the alignment process (Archer and Ghasemzadeh, 1999, Cooper et al., 2000, Aalto, 2000). Within this stream, strategic alignment relates to the need to select projects for implementation that align with the organisations strategic objectives whilst remaining sensitive to avai lable resources (Archer and Ghasemzadeh, 1999). Other researchers have focused their attention further downstream by proposing that the provision of a managerial framework for grouping projects in the form of programmes. This provides a means to bridge the gap between project delivery and organisational strategy (Maylor et al., 2006, Partington et al., 2005, Thiry, 2002) and requires the deployment of a Programme Manager. More recently the concept of project strategy has been presented in the literature (Morris and Jamieson, 2005, Shenhar, 2004, Srivannaboon and Milosevic, 2006, Morris and Jamieson, 2004, Artto et al., 2008). Despite, the lack of clarity of the concept, if we accept the argument that all organisations have a strategy (Porter, 1979) the notion of a project having a single unified strategy that satisfies all the organisations involved is problematic. Shenhar (2004) suggests that a project strategy is the specific unique approach the project takes to achieve the org anizational strategy and is therefore the missing link between the business strategy and the project plans. HANIFF propose that development of a project strategy is the direction given to the project manager by senior management. Brown said that Aligning projects with corporate strategy is not an easy topic to grasp for some organizations, but it is necessary to ensure that all projects are aligned with the organizations goals and objectives. To accomplish this task, an organization must review the project and assess what it is that they want to accomplish. In addition, the business value of the project must be completely understood and defined. When paired with the PMBOK project management phases, the strategic alignment of projects would assist in defining the project outcome and success factors for the initiation phase. This process of aligning projects with corporate strategy helps to address the issue raised by Morris (2003) when he writes that project management must be about delivering business benefit through projects and this necessarily involves managing the project definition as well as downstream implementation (Morris, 2003, pp. 2-3) In considering such complexity, it is difficult to assert how true strategic alignment from the corporate level to the project management level will be achieved.HANIFF Literature suggests that strategy be set at the at the corporate level and then filtered down to the project level (Archer and Ghasemzadeh, 1999, Morris and Jamieson, 2005). Delivery of projects as part of corporate strategy today tends to become an item for discussion. Trying to projectification every aspect of organizational life but without analyzing the implications of such testing may be dangerous for the life of the organization itself. Many of the worlds project management societies have recognized the need to educate organizations about SPM and its benefits according to Naughton Green. They write: Recently, a number of the worlds leading project management organizations have taken major initiatives to enlighten executive management about the strategic importance and benefits of project management. The focus is to move from individual project management to organizational project management, which these organizations maintain is a strategic advantage in a competitive economy (Naughton Green, 2006, p. 1). Analizand toate aceste aspecte se desprinde concluzia ca projects and project management are an efficient means of implementing organisational strategy.(Haniff Fernie 2009) este un proces complex care trebuie adaptat in functie de natura organizatiei. Folosirea project managementului in sensul implementarii strategiei organizatiei este inca la inceput si necesita timp si metode de abordare. Stabilirea criteriilor in alinierea proiectelor la strategia organizatiei este un process in expansiune asa cum am aratat in cadrul acestei analize. Probabil anii care vor urma ne vor arata noi modalitati de implicare a project managementului in atingerea obiectivelor strategice ale organizatiei. . . Conclusion The purpose of this paper has been to provide an overview of Strategic Project Management (SPM). The use of SPM and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) can provide a great deal of advantage to an organization to allow them to identify and select those projects that provide the greatest level of value to the organization. There are considerable advantages for an organization to undertake a rethinking and/or retooling of the project management function to include SPM methodologies and practices in the selection of projects that are undertaken.